August 13, 2018

What's on TV? Thursday, August 15, 1963

I may have mentioned this before, but for several years I hosted a political talk show on public access television. I mention this not to brag, but to point out something that I've often said: being on TV is no big deal. That's not to disparage anyone who's ever been on television, but all the same it's true. At the time you think you're doing something significant, even important, but in the end very few of us leave behind any kind of mark.

The reason I'm bringing all this up is because the listings week's TV Guide, from the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, include the names of most of the program hosts. Some of them we're sure to recognize: Hugh Downs on Today and Concentration; Huntley and Brinkley on the NBC news, Cronkite on the CBS news, Tom Kennedy on You Don't Say!, and so on. And every market has its local legends; Dave Moore and Bud Kraehling on WCCO, for example. But many more of them are little more than names on a printed page. Take the hosts of the shows on KTCA - Berkowitz, Brown, Wolf. We could look them up and might find something about them, but I doubt there's one person in 100,000 who remember them here. I'd never heard of Betty Wells, whose five-minute program airs at 4:00 p.m. on Channel 5, but if you go to the next-to-last page of this issue of Broadcasting magazine, you'll find an ad featuring her show.

All these people were, at one time or another, important enough to have their own television programs, and yet - well, we don't even do a good job of remembering those whom we should remember, let alone those who aren't nearly as well known. It all goes to show, I suppose, that the slave standing behind the triumphant general was correct, as he whispered in his ear, Sic transit gloria, all fame is fleeting. Let's see what the listings have to offer.

Since you didn't annotate this time, I think I'll just do a day-at-a-time of highlights that you seem to have missed.

SATURDAY: - From the Old DVD Wall comes Sam Benedict:Crusading lawyer Edmond O'Brien has a matched set of bad clients - a right-wing paramilitary racist (James Gregory) and a semi-open Commie socialite (Nina Foch). Lotsa speechifying and no drama.

- After the 10 PM news, Channel 5 is showing Queen Of Outer Space, in which Zsa Zsa Gabor does not play the title role.

SUNDAY: - Mister Ed is repeating Clint Eastwood's guest shot, which was done as a favor for producer Arthur Lubin; when they were both at Universal, Lubin started Eastwood's career in a couple of Francis the Talking Mule movies. Lubin and Eastwood had plans to be producing partners, but an Italain summer intervened …

MONDAY: - On Stump The Stars, three cast members of the newly-released PT 109 movie take on the pantomiming regulars (one of them is James Gregory, op cit.).

THURSDAY: - Alcoa Premiere presents "Hornblower", a backdoor pilot based on the C.S. Forester novels, which John Newland produced in England.OK, so it didn't sell; still, do you suppose that anybody would be mounting such a prospective series at late as 1963?

- Bicycle Time:Channel 7 has the Steve Allen show which should be playing Minn-StP next Thursday: Rosemary Clooney, Shecky Greene, and a potter (with appropriately messy demonstration).

- Locally, Channel 5 is running MGM's old Pete Smith Specialties just before the evening news block every night: tonight's film is about acrobats ("Why Shore!") … and after midnight, channel 5 is running FBI Girl, a Lippert Pictures classic from 1951, starring Cesar Romero, Audrey Totter, Raymond Burr, George Brent, and an up-and-coming comedy team - Tommy Noonan and Peter Marshall (this one's in the Wall - and I've seen it!).

FRIDAY (and this is the one you should have picked): - A crime drama battle royale: - The Alfred Hitchcock Hour has "Bonfire", about a tent preacher who wants a rich lady's mansion, and is willing to put a commandment or two aside to get it. Playing the preacher: a pre-Columbo Peter Falk. - Meanwhile, several channels away, 77 Sunset Strip has one of its better later shows, in which Stu Bailey's secretary shows up at the office - six years late. The original cast was still at full strength; the guest stars included Myrna Fahey as the tardy secretary, plus Phil Carey and a (sort of) young George Kennedy. Good show, IMO.

- Last but not least: tonight's Steve Allen Show on Channel 7 features one of your favorites: writer Richard Gehman, who "will interview Steve on the air for TV Guide".

Just a few highlights here and there (mostly there) … … and as Pete Smith used to say: "G'bye now!"